


Smoke

by Away_With_The_Faeries



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Ghost Tadashi, Hiro the really emotional man, Smoking, aged up hiro, cursing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2653190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Away_With_The_Faeries/pseuds/Away_With_The_Faeries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At age 19, Hiro is a mess. He smokes like a chimney, and does especially so when it nears the anniversary of his brother's death. He knows inside that Tadashi wouldn't approve of his habits he now has, but can't bring himself to quit the addicting activity, and Tadashi confirms his belief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Serpents on my Arms and Smoke on my Breath

Hiro put the cigarette to lips and took a long drag.

He remembered the first time he had ever smoked. It was at a college party that he probably shouldn't have been at with Honey Lemon, whom he guessed had forgotten he was only 15 at the time. She honest-to-God thought it would cheer him up, since it was around the year anniversary of his older brother's death and he was not doing well. The party was foggy feeling, and it smelled like cheap alcohol, marijuana, and body odor. Hiro had wondered why Honey would go somewhere like this. 

At the party, a young woman with bright pink hair handed him a cigarette from the carton in her hand.

"Your vibe don't seem mellow, bro. Take this. I'll light it for ya." She pulled out a metal lighter with flowers painted on it, sparked the flame, and brought it to his cigarette. "Suck in it, man. I hope your night gets better." Hiro concluded she was stoned as hell, since the stench of pot wafted off her and her eyes looked red.

He drew his breath in and felt smoke hit his inside, like someone shoved lava down his throat, the he started to feel light headed. He couldn't decided whether or not he liked it, but it felt good enough. Of course, Honey found out, scolded him in a mix between English and Spanish, and swore never to take him to a party again.

He was 19 now, the same age his brother was when he died. It was getting to be that time of the year again, where he was too depressed to get out of bed and even bother to be active at the college, or join in protecting San Fransokyo The time of the year he'd come home so drunk, he couldn't remember his middle name; the time of the year he'd smoke a pack a day. He'd get into fights with his aunt over it, knew it was disrespectful to her, but he couldn't help it. Every year, Cass had threatened to throw him out for making her house stink, or for underaged drinking, and told him he how Tadashi would be ashamed of him and the way he dealt with his life

The black haired young man leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, taking another drag.

He had grown to be taller than his aunt, Cass, and he was fairly certain he was the same height that Tadashi was. However, unlike his brother, he stayed lithe and thin, probably from his large aforementioned smoking and nicotine addiction. He was strong, of course, but his arms weren't as thick as his brother's were. He was still bony as a skeleton. He had also modified his appearance in ways his brother would have had a fit over.

From the moment he had turned eighteen, Hiro hadn't getting stopped getting tattoos. On his left hand's index finger, he had gotten Baymax's face, and curled around his right forearm, a water serpent. It didn't help he was planning to get forget-me-nots along the tops his collar bones. When he was seventeen, he shaved half of his head without his aunt's permission, getting him into all kinds of trouble. 

It was Autumn, and the city was chilly. Hiro zipped his hoodie up and flicked his dead cigarette on the ground, stomping on it. He walked inside the Lucky Cat Cafe, where his aunt was working.

* * *

The cafe was mint green, with a pleasant scent of bread and coffee and a warm ambience filling the air. Cute looking, lovey-dovey couples and studying college students filled the seats, giggling and chewing on pencils respectively. The whole scene made Hiro uncomfortable. He instinctively walked to the counter to see if Aunt Cass needed anything

"Hiro Hamada! You reek of cigarettes!" His aunt scolded him while ringing up an order.

"I was smoking. I'm not going to smell like fuckin' daisies." He replied bitterly. 

"Watch your tone, and heat the oven to 350. I'm making a pizza."  Cass commanded him. 

Hiro walked upstairs to the kitchen, turning on the electric oven on. He alternately cursed and thanked it for not being a gas oven, or he might have shoved his head in it at the age of fourteen. 

He walked from the kitchen to the living room and threw himself on the couch, burying his face into the pillow. Memories from the day Tadashi died washed over him like a black and bloodied wave.

_Hiro woke up, a tad panicked. He had an IV poking from his arm and cuts, bruises, and burns scarring his skin._

_"Tadashi! Aunt Cass!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. "Tadashi!"_

_A tall doctor with long red curls stepped in his room, his aunt following._

Hiro started could smell the hospital from memory, and dug his nails into the couch.

_"Hiro, darling, Tadashi can't come in." the small brunette's mascara dripped down her cheeks, mixing with her tears._

_"Why? How badly was he hurt? I told him not to go in there!" He demanded to know where his patriarch was._

_"Hiro, he didn't make it out of the fire alive. He died."_

"God fucking damn it." The man sat up, and rubbed his face in frustration. He couldn't handle these flashbacks he had. 

"Hiro, honey. What do you want on the pizza?" She asked his gently. 

"I don't care, I'm not hungry." He replied calmly. 

"Maybe if you wouldn't smoke so much, you would be." Cass scolded him. She didn't approve of his habit, but didn't stop him anymore; he was of legal age and made the choice himself.

"I'm sorry, smoking makes me forget about my hot mess called my life." The black haired man's words stung his aunt, and guilt froze his insides.

"Your life is a hot mess?  _Your life?_ Did you raise two children you were not prepared for? That were your  _dead sister's children?"_ Cass rebutted him. "I understand you lost your brother, but you are going out, getting tattoos, getting wasted and stoned, smoking your lung away, and that's not going to bring him back."

Hiro looked away from his aunt's eyes.

"You won't listen to me or even look me in the eye. You treat people terribly and you disrespect me in every way possible. I'm done threatening to kick you out, because it doesn't work. I'm just done." Cass then delivered the killing blow. "Your brother would be ashamed of you."

"Fine." He wanted to cry and fall into someone's arms but that someone wasn't here. That someone would, according to his aunt, be ashamed of him. He hid his emotions behind a robotic facade.

Hiro got up from the couch and walked to his room. Mochi ran between his legs. She was slowly becoming an old cat, with grey around her muzzle. "Go away, cat."

* * *

In his room, he fell to his bed on his back, stretching his lithe form and pulling his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. The nicotine felt nice to his brain and the smoke easied his eyes closed, covering him like a blanket. He knew the room was empty, but for some reason, he was sent back to how it felt when he was 13. He felt like Tadashi was in the room with him.

"Motherfucker." he sighed and thought about the choices he had made. The skinny man decided it was for the best if he popped into the lab tomorrow to work on some sort of a project and to sate his friends' need to check on him. 

It was completely silent and still in the room after he uttered the words, when an action figure fell to the floor, and another following.

He got up and placed them back on the shelf and her turned away, just to hear them fall again.

"Well, fuck." Hiro repeated his actions, just to have all of them fall at once. 

"Jesus fuckin' Christ!"

He started to pick them up when he felt a tap on his shoulder. 

"Look, Aunt Cass, I'm sorry I've been such an ass lately, I--" He turned to find his gut's prediction right, and found older brother behind him, dressed the same way he was the day he died, as a faint apparition, like the smoke from his cigarette in his mouth.

"Hiro," He sounded like he was beginning a long speech on responsibilities.

"Tadashi?"

 

 

 


	2. God Complexes

"Tadashi?" Hiro's eyes became the size of Jupiter and he almost dropped his cigarette. He caught it, the lit end landing in his hand, causing him to howl.

"Hiro, I'm disappointed." The smoky apparition scolded him.

The man wondered if someone tampered with his smokes, like his dear Aunt Cass. Maybe she was trying to teach him a lesson.

"Hiro, look at me. You need to clean yourself up and actually care." 

He ignored his brother, telling himself it was just his mind playing tricks on him, and nursed his burn.

"Hiro Hamada!" He then felt a mist-like form pin him against his bed.

"What the hell do you want? Are my decisions so bad you had to scold me from beyond the grave or something? You aren't fucking real." Hiro asked the mist. 

"Hiro, I am just as real as you are. I'm not a defunct cigarette or drugged booze." Tadashi floated upright and solidified.

Hiro looked at him completely for the first time. He was wearing his dark grey blazer over his navy tee and dark pants underneath it all. On his head, however, his was missing his trademark baseball cap. His mint green sneakers had dark ashy marks staining them, as well as his hands. In his vaporous form, all his colors were soaked in a dilute, lightening them with a grey tinge. In his solid form, his colors were as vivid as the day he died, but his skin was kissed with a deathly pallor. His eyes were lined with eternal sleep and blood dripped from his scalp, like something had hit him when he had died. He reeked of smoke, death, and decay. He was the at the height of fashion six feet under.

"Well, do you think if I turned on the fan, you'd be blown away? 'Cuz I don't wanna hear you." Hiro laid back on his bed again, kicking off his black sneakers.

Hamada started to talk calmly, even though his was annoyed with his brother. "Listen to me. You're nineteen. You graduated high school at thirteen, and college at seventeen. You could do great things--"

"Other than save this stupid town three times a week?" The younger Hamada interrupted.

"Okay, you know what, drop the god complex. You're not special because you have a robot that  _I_ made that  _you_  addedfighting to. By the way, do you know how angry I was with you over that? Baymax was made to help people, not for you to use to kill a man!" Hiro had never noticed how frightening Tadashi was until now. His voice filled the room like thunder and he was sure his older brother did notice it.

"I was hurt, okay? I had lost you, and I needed you." Hiro admitted, "And when the fire hit gas pipes and exploded, I lost everything."

"What explosion? I don't remember an explosion. I was hit in the head with a falling beam." Tadashi mentioned to the nasty gash on the top of his head. "I'm sorry I left you there, but I had to help Callaghan. I had lost Abigail and I couldn't lose him too."

"What do you mean 'you lost Abigail'? You knew her?" Hiro asked, shocked. "If you mean in a romantic sense, she was with Alistair Krei." 

"She and I were together, secretly." Tadashi sighed. "She was a TA in a class of mine and she tutored me on a few subjects. We started talking and getting to know eachother better, and well, fell in love."

"I don't believe you. I'm not even convinced you're real." The young Hamada said back.

"Either way, we were in love. The night before she died we had gotten into a fight. I told her I didn't think it was a wise decision to pilot that mission but she said she would be fine and that it would go fine. AFter I had found out the news from gossip around the school, I was sick to my stomach. My last words to her were rather hateful."

"Well, good news is she's alive. I saved her. Well, Baymax and I did." Hiro reached up to put his hand on his brother shoulder, but stopped in mid-motion and place his hand back where it was. Tadashi didn't notice.

"She was only with Krei to get a bit farther in life, plus her father 'liked' him. He was rich, that's what Callaghan liked. Krei was an alcoholic when he was with Abigail, and probably still is. He blamed her for a lot of his issues. He took advantage of a lot of people and it came back to bite him. He'd leave all his messes for her and his team to clean up. Once, he found Abigail and I, ahem, together, and threatened to beat me with a bat. His words were so slurred, though, I could barely understand him. I simply got up and stood in front of him and he ran off." Tadashi continued his rant.  "That's why were sending each other daggers the night I died."

"Did you hear me?"

"No."

"She's alive."

"What?" The ghost exclaimed.

"Abigail Callaghan? Yeah, she's alive. She was stuck in cotton candy hell," Hiro explained to his older brother nonchalantly. "It was gorgeous, but still terrifying."

Tadashi looked shocked. "I thought she was gone. No wonder I looked everywhere for her and I couldn't find her. Damn." 

"Well, go haunt her ass and not--"

"Hiro, who's that?" Aunt Cass called up to him. 

"No one, Aunt Cass." He called down, a bit panicky.

"Yeah, of course there isn't." Hiro heard footsteps on the stairs and he panicked on how to explain Tadashi. The door cracked open and he his train of thought was drowned in panic. 

"Hiro, tell me who it is or--" Her reaction was the same as Hiro's. "T-Tadashi?"

"Aunt Cass." 

* * *

 

Following a half hour of screaming, crying, and denial on Cass's part, the conversation finally continued.

"So, you mean to tell me, you came back from the afterlife to lecture your troublesome brother?"

"Yep, and for a few other things."

Cass turned to her younger nephew. "See, Hiro, your life choices are so bad right now,  your  _undead brother_ came back from the  _dead_ to criticize them."

"Hey, Aunt Cass, why don't ask Tadashi what else her came back over!" Hiro tried to divert attention from himself.

"Well, Tadashi, you mentioned, now spit it out." Cass demanded of the ghost.

Paled brown eyes glared at lively ones.

"I wanted to talk to Abigail, one last time."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, thanks for reading! Please tell me what you thought, and I might end up continuing this. ^U^


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